In this article Darren recalls a project car from 9 years ago that boasted boost, but only leeched time, effort, and cash. It was still a cool car though.
“What’s that you say… A Merkur XR4Ti… great condition… I always wanted one of those… how much… free you say… and free delivery… of course I’ll take it!” That is basically the telephone conversation it took sell me another car I wanted but didn’t need, and as time would show, didn’t have the resources for.
In the mid 1980’s Ford had decided to add Euro flair to their North American lineup, this was easily seen in their styling departure from the Pinto, LTD, and other schools of the 70’s cars. These older steel and chrome cars were replaced by the Aero lights and lines of the Escort, Taurus, and even the new for ’79 Fox Mustang underwent this influence.
By the mid-1980’s the Aero-square look was everywhere, and Ford looked to their West German (remember there was still a wall bisecting Germany at the time, keeping Trabants at bay) models to diversify the North American landscape. They chose two models, a peppy 3-door hatchback called the Sierra and a nicely trimmed sedan called the Scorpio. Coming across the pond the Sierra name was already in use with General Motors, so the Sierra became the XR4Ti.
The XR designation has been in use with Mercury since the 1960’s usually adorning theCougar, and the 4 is cylinder, T for Turbo, i for fuel injected, XR4Ti. Both cars werebadged under the Merkur brand, the Germany word for Mercury.
I am frequently corrected that the pronunciation is “Mare-Core” but no one calls a Volkswagon a “Folks-Vaughen” so I stick with the Mur-Keer phonetics.
So back to this thing, why did I want it?
This was a pretty cool car, unusual styling, a capable 2.3L OHC Turbocharged engine, a 5
speed manual, and Independent Rear Suspension, and they were crazy expensive back in their day. The formula looked great a domestic branded “tuner” car with rear drive and a good selection of engine hop-up parts. Readers note, this thing shared its engine with the famed Mustang SVO, Thunderbird Turbocoupe, and Mercury XR7 Turbo. We were looking at factory performance of 175 Horsepower at 12 psi of non-intercooled boost and a 2900 lb package, a great starting point.
The story of this free car was that the previous owner had bought it, disassembled the interior, and then took a job working out of the region, and this car was a problem to keep in storage. By the time it got to me, he was just eager to unload it and wash his hands of it. After seeing the otherwise excellent condition of the complete car, I was more than happy to make it my problem.
So on May 5th 2008, the trailer arrived and my 1986 Merkur XR4Ti rolled off the back, a basic bill of sale was signed and we pushed the car out of the way of the alley. A Wile E. Coyote dust cloud followed the previous owner as he drove off once the deal was done, he was glad to be free of it.
Does it run?
When my wife arrived home to see a new car in her garage parking spot she was slightly skeptical, a series of direct questions about it origin and duration of visit, finally ending in; “Does it run?”
“Yes Dear, it does run, we ran it in here.” (She would never again fall for this phrase)
Satisfied, she left us alone, I hadn’t lied to her, but I hadn’t been precisely… outright with my disclosure. The car did run, after we gave it fuel and a battery that much was true, but another matter was the glorious amounts of smoke that issued from the exhaust. This massive volume of smoke was a cause for irritation and a verbal exchange with my neighbour, (Sorry John!) which took some years to smooth over. Clearly the turbo seals and valve seals were shot, the clutch was metal on metal, the brakes were done, and the driveshaft needed work. So once my wife left the garage we proceeded to take a running car, and strip the engine.
Disassembly began in earnest!
The car ran, but did not drive, not on any street anyway, and would require considerable work to get there.
The car would reside in my wife’s “designated spot” for 6 months, each one straining her patience for the unique European Hot Hatch.
Rather than take care of the obvious problem of the jigsaw puzzle interior, Shawn and I went with what we knew, Ford 2.3L OHC engines. We’ve had countless numbers of these things over the years and this little mill was a cinch to fix up. While it only needed new valve seals, I decided to seize the opportunity to “build it for boost” lots of glorious boost.
The head was ported, the valve re-lapped, a NA intake was procured, gutted, and the lower intake knife edged for improved flow. Since the Merkur lacked an intercooler one was procured, set to be a front mount. At the time I had a part-time job doing automotive
powdercoating work (a story for another day) and spent a boatload of time doing
showcar powder on the engine parts.
The most effective porting is done with a sawzall!
Hours of R&D were expended in shaping up what speed parts would work best and the path to a genuine 400 horsepower seemed clear. This thing was going to be mint!
But then stupid reality set in
First tip, if you are in a country that uses KPH and your post-1979 vehicle’s speedometer reads in MPH, it may have been imported from the USA. A thorough search of the car was rewarded with the owner’s manual and plenty of original documentation, all of it addressed to Texas, but nothing Canadian. This was a problem, I had a car that had clearly hopped the border but after more searching had never been properly registered for Canadian road use.
This was more of an administrative pain in the ass than a major problem, I would simply have to bring the car up to a high safety standard, have an inspection done, and paid some fees. No problem for a free car, I’d still be money ahead once this thing was buzzing down the road at max boost.
The bring the car up to a high safety standard bit would prove to be a sticking point, this may be mind-blowing to some of our readers but Alberta Canada does not have annual vehicle safety inspections.
You can literally walk into a field, find an abandoned car from the 1960’s, make it run, scratch out a bill of sale on a bar napkin, telephone for basic insurance and have a license plate the same day. Under certain circumstances you could even drive the vehicle to the Registry office to obtain the plate.
However, when it does come time to bring a vehicle into the province from outside, watch out, tiny things like dripping a little oil, or misaligned headlights can have the vehicle rejected.
The Merkur, while in great shape did need a number of parts, like brake pads, which were not available in Canada any longer, and struts, I could get rear struts, but not fronts, the driveshaft had a rubber doughnut (guibo) that was shot, again nothing doing.
I could of course get parts from BAT (British-American Transfer) Performance but that involved shipping from the UK and purchasing in pounds Stirling, by the time of my order of bare necessities had been totaled up I had hit a few thousand dollars. This brought the project to a rather abrupt halt.
Months passed.
It was time to take a good look at this, with all the parts cost and then factoring in my time, and finally brokering a car with an unknown past through the out of country import process, I decided I wasn’t that interested in seeing this through, I had a bolder purchase on the horizon and needed the space. That Fall, a call was made, and JesseJesse appeared with his trailer first loading the Merkur and he returned for the other broken 2.3L Turbo Ford in the project, Keith’s 1988 Ford Thunderbird Turbocoupe.
The Merkur went away for exactly what I’d paid for it… Free.
After some wheeling and dealing, Shawn would take ownership of both vehicles and my Street bling, built for boost 2.3L Merkur engine would be the latest powerplant to take the Race Truck to racing successes.
It was not easy to let this car go, but it allowed me to restore the wife’s Pontiac Grand Prix GTP to its rightful parking spot, which made her happy, and it freed up the space I needed for a brand new 2009 Shelby GT500.
What project cars have you had to let go, and why? Tells us about it in the comments below or join the conversation over on Facebook! www.facebook.com/grandtouringconcepts/
GTC Darren
Matt Plooy
